Tag Archives: Bicycle Christmas

Tree Hauling Year Ten.

Posted on December 12, 2016 by | Leave a comment

 

Tree Hauling Year TEN!

After TEN years, I don’t have much more to say about tree hauling by bike. Other than TEN YEARS! Wow, we really are old. The 13-year-old hauled the tree home, then immediately set off on his bike for an afternoon D&D session at his friend’s house. Teens are busy! I will say that my family has labeled me the Scrooge because I’m sorta down on Christmas and all of the commercialism. That tree we hauled home yesterday was eighty bucks! Bah Humbug.

Thanks to Tim for keeping the Christmas spirit alive in our house! His Christmas-loving mom would be proud. Merry Christmas!

Memory Lane

Once again, I’m recycling our tree-hauling photo retrospective from years past. Last year our daughter claimed that, “our family is weird” and “this was her last year”. And yesterday she said, “Now that we’ve done ten, I’m done.” So this really could be our last Christmas tree post, EVER. We’ll see.

 Year One: 2007, look how little!

2007 Family Long Bike Christmas

Year Two: 2008, a dusting of snow

Xtracycle Tree Haulin 2008: The happy family

Year Three: 2009, the year we frozeXtracycle Tree Haulin 2009

Year Four: 2010, the year it rained a lot2010 Xtracycle Tree Haulin

Year Five:  2011, kids on their own bikes!

2011 Xtracycle Tree Haulin Family

Year Six: 2012, looking so grown up!

2012 Xtracycle Tree Haulin (Year Six!)

Year Seven: 2013, Kids hauling trees. (She’s almost as tall as me)

Foggy Xtracycle Tree Hauling (year 7)

Year Eight: 2014, whoa these kids are tall, but still shorter than me.family and tree_DSC8705 (Large)

2015: Year Nine. We’re almost all the same height (except for Tim)
Family Christmas Tree Xtracycle 2015

2016:  Year Ten. I have places to be. Can we go yet?

Tree Hauling Year TEN!

Happy Holidays, everyone. Looking forward to checking out your tree-hauling adventures.

– Anne and Tim

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Posted in alternative transportation, Bicycle Christmas, BIG Loads, bikes, Everyday Biking

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Light Up Your Bike with Battery-Powered-Holiday-Lights

Posted on December 19, 2014 by | 3 comments

a&g_DSC8655 (Large)Tree-hauling preparations started last week with a search for LED-battery-powered-holiday-bike lights. We love using these festive lights in the winter, not just to spread holiday cheer, but also for safety, they provide excellent side visibility! They come in all shapes and sizes: from stars to pine cones to super mini-bulbs. We string them through our front baskets and weave them around our rear Xtracyle Snapdecks. Drivers really appreciate a festive well-lit bike, and often stop us to compliment our high-vis-decorated bikes and cool lights. Continue reading →

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Posted in alternative transportation, Bicycle Christmas, bikes, consumerism, Everyday Biking, shopping

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Eighth-Annual Xtracycle Tree Haulin! (plus retrospective)

Posted on December 15, 2014 by | 4 comments

Tree and bikes_DSC8679 (Large)This is our obligatory eighth-annual Christmas tree by bike post. Tree-hauling is old hat by now, but I thought I’d post some photos of this year’s adventure anyway. You might remember that last year our daughter hauled the tree. When we discussed who would pedal the tree home this year, I realized I’d never done it. How did I pass on all of those tree-hauling opportunities over the years? Naturally I volunteered for the task.

Continue reading →

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Posted in alternative transportation, Bicycle Christmas, BIG Loads, bikes, family cycling, xtracycle

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Tree Hauling, Year 7: Kids Hauling Trees

Posted on December 17, 2013 by | 7 comments

Foggy Xtracycle Tree Hauling (year 7)
Happy Holidays! It’s time for our seventh-annual Christmas-tree hauling post. You’re probably bored of our tree-hauling exploits at this point. But it’s a tradition so we’re sharing anyway!

Last year our friend, Charlotte, suggested that the kids need to start hauling the tree. And since our daughter now fits Anne’s bikes, Tim floated the idea by her a couple of weeks ago. As a new 13 year old, she’s lukewarm about even riding bikes, let alone hauling trees on bikes in public, where, you know, like, her friends and, like, the whole world might see her!

So we weren’t surprised then with her less-than-enthusiastic response.

Continue reading →

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Posted in BIG Loads, bikes, family cycling

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2012 Xtracycle Tree Haulin (6th Annual)

Posted on December 7, 2012 by | 6 comments

8250654778_e4348a9090Year Six is D O N E.

We all pedaled up to our local tree lot the other evening, chose a 8′ Noble fir and headed home. Simple, straightforward and almost no drama. Continue reading →

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Posted in bikes, extravehicular activities, family cycling, longbikes, xtracycle

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Tree Haulin, Year SIX

Posted on December 5, 2012 by | 3 comments

We’re gearing up for Xtracycle Tree Hauling, year six! We plan to get our tree in the next couple of days and promise to post photos of year six later in the week. Not as cute as when the kids were little and riding on the Snapdeck, but still fun nonetheless.

For now, check out years 2007 – 2011. How the kids have grown! More blog posts and photos of all tree hauling adventures here and here

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Continue reading →

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Posted in alternative transportation, BIG Loads, bikes, longbikes, xtracycle

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Fourth-Annual Xtracycle Tree Haulin (plus retrospective)

Posted on December 13, 2010 by | 24 comments

4th Annual Xtracycle Tree Haulin

We used to make a huge production out of the annual-tree claiming event. We’d load up the VW camper, grab a $5 (bargain!) Forest Service tree-cutting permit, drive up toward the snow for a while, and tromp around in the (snowy, wet, muddy,etc) woods, until we found a tree we could all agree on. Of course, said tree was always double the size we needed (they look smaller in the forest), so fresh we couldn’t bear to take it down until Valentine’s day, and that five-dollar permit usually involved an oil change, a swap to the snow tires, and at least a tank of gas. So really, $5 plus another eighty or so & change.

Bargain?

So when we seriously started doing the long-bike thing, we thought we’d give our auto-induced tree haulin’ a break for a year so we could support our local, neighborhood tree lot and find out if was really possible to haul (it seems so obvious now) our family tree via bike. I mean, it’s just a year, right? Then we’ll go back to fun way up in the snow.

Except, all of sudden it’s our fourth, haul-by-bike Christmas. It turns out we didn’t miss the old that much at all. In fact, we’d argue the new way is much, much better. Here’s why: Continue reading →

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